HOUSTON, March 21- Residents of two Houston- area cities were told to stay indoors and schools in six communities were closed on Thursday due to air pollution by a cancer-causing chemical after a petrochemical plant fire. The City of Deer Park, 20 miles east of Houston, issued a shelter-in-place advisory to its 34,000 residents after reports of high levels of...

March 21- Residents of a Houston- area community were told to remain indoors and schools were closed on Thursday after a petrochemical plant fire that burned for days released high levels of volatile organic compounds into the air. The City of Deer Park, 20 miles east of Houston, issued a shelter-in-place advisory to its 34,000 residents after reports of "action...

BEIJING, March 21- The potential value of recyclable metals in discarded mobile phones, laptops and desktop computers in China will more than double to around $24 billion by 2030, environmental group Greenpeace forecast on Thursday. China, the world's largest mobile phone market, is trying to promote recycling of electronic waste, or e-waste, to improve its...

The EPA is set to decide on its pending 2018 exemption applications by the end of March, the compliance-year deadline under the RFS. EPA spokesman Michael Abboud declined to comment, saying only that it would continue to follow the letter of the law. "EPA continues to implement the Renewable Fuel Standard program, including Small Refinery Exemptions, in...

HOUSTON, March 20- State and local investigators have begun probing a petrochemical storage company outside Houston where a massive fire fed by giant tanks of fuel burned for days, darkening the skies with soot for dozens of miles, officials said. Adam Adams, an Environmental Protection Agency official, said he did not know if the federal agency was conducting...

March 20- A U.S. judge blocked drilling on more than 300,000 acres of federal land in Wyoming, saying officials in their environmental analyses failed to adequately consider the climate change impacts of oil and gas leasing. The ruling, by U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Rudolph Contreras, was issued late on Tuesday, according to court...

HOUSTON, March 19- Firefighters on Wednesday extinguished a fire at a Mitsui& Co petrochemical storage site outside Houston that has been billowing acrid smoke for days, the company said. The blaze at Mitsui unit Intercontinental Terminals Co in Deer Park, Texas, was put out by 3 a.m., but fire crews continued to spray foam and water on the tanks to help keep them cool...

PRETORIA, March 20- South Africa's foreign direct investment more than doubled in 2018 to reach its highest in five years, the central bank said on Wednesday, giving a boost to President Cyril Ramaphosa's pledge to woo investors to help revive a struggling economy. The South African Reserve Bank said in its quarterly bulletin that foreign direct investment...

HONG KONG, March 20- Start-ups specialising in alternative protein, from eggless eggs to pea-stuffed burgers and cell-grown fish products, are piling into the Chinese territory of Hong Kong to tap the mainland's booming multi-billion dollar food market. Backed by some of the world's top billionaires including Hong Kong businessman Li Ka- shing,...

HOUSTON, March 19- Firefighters late Tuesday contained a raging inferno at a Mitsui& Co petrochemical storage site outside of Houston that has been billowing acrid smoke for days as Texas officials and environmental groups raced to expand air monitoring. The blaze at Mitsui unit Intercontinental Terminals Co in Deer Park, Texas, was reduced to four burning...

The blaze at Mitsui unit Intercontinental Terminals Co in Deer Park, Texas, has ignited or consumed 12 of 15 tanks at the site, officials said in a late Tuesday briefing. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality reported an increase in soot and other contaminants at ground levels around the site but said levels remained below those considered unhealthy.

Monitoring by an Environmental Protection Agency aircraft also found "no significant detections," the EPA said. But Neil Carmen, a director at the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club environmental group, said the airborne plume likely contained tens of thousands of milligrams of particles, well above levels considered safe. The Environmental Defense Fund, a...

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality also installed additional air monitors near the site, but had no updates early Tuesday, a spokesman said. But Neil Carmen, a director at the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club environmental group, said the airborne plume likely contained tens of thousands of milligrams of particles, well above levels considered safe.

The blaze at Intercontinental Terminals Co in Deer Park, Texas, has been burning since Sunday when a leaking tank containing volatile naphtha ignited and quickly spread to other nearby tanks, the company said. Some of the chemicals have washed into the adjacent Houston Ship Channel that links the Gulf of Mexico to Houston, the nation's busiest petrochemical...